


Mama's Broken Heart

by xavierurban



Series: A Little Bit Country [4]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Songfic, always-a-girl!luke, but also maybe a little overbearing, cisgirl!Luke, girl!luke, hemmings family - Freeform, liz being awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:46:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4696154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xavierurban/pseuds/xavierurban
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>// go and fix your make-up, girl, it’s just a break-up.</i><br/><i>run and hide your crazy, and start actin’ like a lady,</i><br/><i>‘cuz i raised you better, gotta keep it together,</i><br/><i>even when you fall apart,</i><br/><i>but this ain’t my mama’s broken heart. //</i><br/> <br/>Lu hasn't been doing well since the break up, and word gets around in a small town. Honestly, she isn’t even surprised when, a week after Michael walked out, she wakes up to her mother throwing open the curtains in her room. That’s what she gets for having given her a key.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. don’t matter how you feel, it only matters how you look

**Author's Note:**

> Fic and chapter titles and summary lyrics from Mama's Broken Heart, by Miranda Lambert.
> 
> This whole Country Songfic series was kind of intended to be made up of one-shots, but I'm considering turning this one chaptered. It's going to have at least 2 chapters, but we'll see where it goes from there. It depends on how inspired I feel.

Lu hasn't been doing well since the break up, and word gets around in a small town. Honestly, she isn’t even surprised when, a week after Michael walked out, she wakes up to her mother throwing open the curtains in her room. That’s what she gets for having given her a key.

Her mother takes one look at her and then throws a towel in her face. “Go take a shower, Lu,” she says firmly, and Lu silently obeys.

After grabbing the towel, she climbs out of bed and makes her way into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind herself. One look in the mirror tells her that her mother was right to send her this way, but she doesn’t _care_. Her hair is greasier than she thinks it’s ever been, including that time that her and Michael had gone to Burning Man, and her bleeding mascara could make racoons and emo kids everywhere jealous. Objectively, she knows she looks like shit, but, in reality, she doesn’t really care. What’s the use in looking good if Michael isn’t there to see her?

Still, she resigns herself to the fact that her mother won’t leave until she looks marginally human again, and Lu sighs as she turns the shower on and hangs the towel over the railing. She waits until the steam rising from the shower has started to fog the mirror before she climbs into the shower and lets the hot water do its job. She has to admit that it feels good on her tired muscles, and she can’t help just standing there for a few minutes, letting the heat seep into the muscles in her back. She sighs and rolls her shoulders a few times before reaching for her facial cleanser.

She takes her time in the shower, washing her face, and then her hair, and then every inch of her body while her conditioner sets. Despite her pre-shower mirror inspection, she surprises herself with how short her hair is when she’s washing it - she had almost forgotten the vodka-induced cut she’d given it. The thought of the long, silky blonde locks in her trash can makes her feel a little sick, but she powers through. She lingers under the spray even after the last of the product has been washed from her hair, not wanting to get out and face the rest of the world.

Or her mother.

As if on cue, the woman in question bangs on the bathroom door, and Lu groans before turning the shower off and reaching for the towel. She wraps it around herself before opening the shower curtain and stepping out onto the bathmat, not carrying that she’s still dripping water all over the place. Maybe she’ll slip and crack her head and Michael will feel guilty enough to go to the funeral.

That doesn’t happen, though. Instead, Lu slowly begins to dry off, and then spends another ten minutes staring at her hair in the mirror. It’s a disaster, to be perfectly frank. Shorter than it’s ever been, and the cut is too jagged to even look edgy. Lu hates it, and she knows Michael would, too. Maybe that’s why she did it.

When she finally opens the bathroom door, she finds that her mother has left a pile of clean clothes on the floor for her, and she reluctantly picks them up before retreating back into the bathroom to change. When she emerges again, she knows she still looks worse for the wear, but at least she’s better than she has been for the past week.

“Oh, Lu,” her mother says, her voice thick with sorrow as she steps into the hall, “Your beautiful hair…”

The younger of the pair tries to shrug, tries to pretend that she doesn’t care, but she can’t lie to her mum. She never could. She falls into the older woman’s embrace with a sob, and hangs on tightly.

_“Mama…”_

Her mother holds her for a while, stroking her back and just letting her cry, but eventually she pulls back and gently wipes the tears from her daughter’s face.

“You need to stop this nonsense, girl,” she tells her firmly, tone leaving no room for argument, “I raised you better than this.” She tuts when Lu rolls her eyes, and starts to steer her towards the kitchen. “Sit,” she says, pointing to one of the stools by the counter, and Lu obeys.

She doesn’t pay attention to much, after that, until suddenly her mother is sliding a plate full of eggs and bacon towards her, and her stomach gurgles loudly. “Eat,” her mother instructs needlessly as the younger woman starts to shove forkfuls of food into her mouth. She scowls, and taps her daughter lightly on the back of the head, “You’re not an animal.”

Lu slows down after that, letting herself savour the comfort of her mother’s cooking, and when she’s finished, she chugs down a glass of orange juice and then promptly drops her face miserably to rest against the counter. “Michael loves bacon,” she mumbles, but she refuses to repeat herself when her mother asks _‘what was that?’_

Her mother pinches the bridge of her nose and counts to ten in her head, and then starts to tidy the kitchen up. “Go put your face on, Lu,” she says, and she can practically feel it when her daughter’s head snaps up to look at her, “I don’t want to hear it, Lu. We’re going out to fix that God-awful mess you’ve made of your hair. Get ready.”

Lu whines the whole way back up to the bathroom, grumbling about overbearing mothers the whole time as she brushes her teeth and puts her make-up on. Still, she can’t deny that the image in the mirror when she’s finished looks better. Her eyes are still too dull, like there’s no light left behind them, and her hair is a disaster, but, otherwise, she looks presentable.

She just hopes she doesn’t run into Michael on the way to the salon.


	2. i screamed his name ‘til the neighbors called the cops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kind of short, but the fic kind of took an unexpected turn in my head. I'm already over 1000 words into chapter three, so hopefully the length of that one will make up for this! Enjoy!

‘Fixing her hair’ ends up meaning a pixie cut that Lu secretly sort of loves, and she’s feeling in considerably better spirits when she follows her mother out of the salon. That doesn’t mean she isn’t ready to go home already, though, and she tells her mother as much, but the older woman scoffs.

“You can’t shut yourself away from the world, Lucille,” she says, “It’s just a break-up; you can’t stop living. Did you even call into work, or did you just stop going?”

“They understand!” Lu groans, her arms crossing over her chest as she glares at her mother, “I don’t know why you _don’t_. It is _not_ just a break, mum! I _love_ him!” She’s about five seconds away from stomping her feet like a child, and they both know it.

Her mother softens, though only slightly, and sighs. “I know you do, Lu,” she concedes, “But sitting around crying over spilled milk isn’t going to make it return to the carton.” She smiles slightly, and nudges her daughter’s arm, “Besides, your cupboards are nearly bare. We’re getting groceries. I can’t, in good conscience, let my baby girl starve.”

\----

It makes sense, that her mother would pick the closest grocery store to Lu’s flat, but Lu still throws a fit when they pull into the parking lot anyway.

“No way,” she says, “No fucking way, absolutely _not_.”

It’s silly, she knows, to be so opposed to walking into a store just because it’s where she and Michael used to shop, but she can’t stand the thought of it. They aren’t even inside yet, and she’s already thinking about their countless two am junkfood runs and that one time Michael tried to race down one of the aisles in a cart and it had flipped over on him halfway down. Lu hadn’t been able to stop laughing for ten minutes, and they’d been kicked out before they could even locate the items they’d come in for. Michael had looked so disappointed, and she’d kissed him under a nearby streetlight until he was smiling again.

She can’t go back in there, not yet, and she tries to tell her mother as much, but she refuses to listen, getting out of the car and coming around to open Lu’s door, instead. She pulls the younger woman out of the car and closes the door behind her before shaking her daughter slightly.

“Pull yourself together, girl,” she scolds, staring Lu down until her gaze turns stony and she pulls free of her mother’s grip.

“Well, at least we know who I learned how to make a scene from,” she snarks before stomping off towards the store. Her mother follows behind, significantly more subdued, and finds them a cart once they’re inside.

The actual shopping is a lot less eventful, but Lu is still relieved when it’s finished and they’re back in her mother’s car, on their way to her flat. She feels guilty, but she hopes her mother isn’t planning to stay the night, since she fully intends to go back to locking herself in her room and blasting her most screamo playlist the next day.

\----

Fortunately, her mother _doesn’t_ spend the night, but she does leave Lu with a stern warning that she’ll be stopping by to check on her again soon, and that she had better be back to work, at the very least, by then. Lu makes a face, but begrudgingly agrees and thanks her mother for the groceries and the haircut before kissing her on the cheek and seeing her off.

Once her mother’s car is gone from her street and the front door is closed, Lu finds herself back in the solitude of what used to be such a lively flat, and she screams. It’s a terrible sound, all rage and heartache, and she collapses to her knees under the weight of it. She doesn’t want her mother there, but she doesn’t want to be alone, either. She wants Michael, and he’s the one person she knows she’ll never have again. It’s a horrible thing to realize, and it makes her scream louder, until her voice breaks and she starts sobbing instead.

She makes it back to her bedroom eventually, and collapses into her bed where she can cry a little more comfortably.

\----

The next day, she decides to take her mother’s advice and get out of the house for a while. She ends up downtown, at a bar that she knows she and Michael had never been to, and tries to forget about him between shots. 


	3. i numbed the pain at the expense of my liver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is going to be the last chapter, but I'm only about 90% sure haha. Hope you enjoy!

That bar becomes a bit of a haven for Lu. Weary of her mother’s next visit, she does start going back to work, but she always finds herself back at the bar when her shift ends. If she still looks hungover as fuck on the days that she works, no one says anything.

She’s not looking for anything other than the mind-numbing blankness that comes along with hitting the bottom of the bottle, but, then, Lu’s not the only one there with a plan in mind. Still, it takes her two weeks to even notice the guy, and another week for him to finally approach her. He’s cute, she’ll give him that, but he’s not Michael. Where Michael was all pale skin and soft curves, Calum - _if that’s your real name_ \- is glowing with naturally tan skin stretching over hard muscles. Where Michael’s eyes were so green you could get lost in them for hours, just like you could in a real forest, Calum’s are a deep brown that should be so plain, but is, in reality, absolutely stunning.

They talk a few times before anything actually happens. It isn’t even anything big, but Lu feels the first stirring of butterflies in her stomach as she punches her number into his phone and then texts herself from it to get his. Calum is a surprisingly nice guy, considering where they met, and he wants to see her outside of the bar. Something about not wanting to take advantage of her drunkenness, and Lu honest to God giggles when he tells her that. He agrees that they should take things slow - he’s coming off his own break-up, too, with some guy he’d been dating since high school - and it’s nice. Lu texts him after work the next day, and they agree to meet for dinner.

They don’t get drunk, not like they do at their bar - and when did she start thinking of it as theirs? - but they do have a few cocktails with their food, and then they’re walking around town, hands clasped together, and Lu had started to forget how nice that feels. It’s going really well, until they decide to turn into a coffee shop for a nonalcoholic nightcap, and Lu is confronted with green eyes and pale skin standing by the counter. She freezes, terror and pain and love making a mess of her features, and she surprises herself when he recognizes her and starts to say her name.

She turns to Calum-

-and kisses him.

He’s shocked, at first, but his hands come up to gently cradle her face as he kisses her back, and it should feel so, so good, but instead it feels so, so wrong. Calum deserves a better first kiss than this, and he doesn’t even know it yet. He’s smiling when they finally pull apart, his eyes sparkling in the cafe lights as he looks at her, and Lu’s stomach churns with guilt. She smiles at him anyway, and tries not to look towards the counter to see if Michael is still there.

“What was that for?” He asks, breathless, and Lu should want to kiss him again so that he keeps sounding that way, but she can _feel_ Michael’s gaze burning into her, and she’s such a coward, and she’s still so, so in love.

Calum’s smile falters after a few seconds, and his hands fall back to his sides as he pulls back. He knows something’s wrong, and Lu feels like the worst person alive. Oh, God, she’s such a piece of shit, and she can’t help it when she bursts into tears. Right there, in the middle of some random fucking cafe, in front of her ex-boyfriend and her maybe-next-boyfriend, and it’s the most embarrassed that she’s ever been, and Calum is so, so sweet, pulling her in for a hug, his hand warm and firm on the back of her neck as she clings to the back of his shirt and buries her face against his chest.

She doesn’t see Michael, but Calum does, and he doesn’t get it at first, why this guy has the biggest deer-in-the-headlights look on his face that Cal has ever seen, but then the barista calls out Michael’s name and sets his drink on the counter, and Calum scowls. _Michael_. That can’t be a coincidence.

Michael takes his drink sheepishly, and starts towards the pair. He hesitates, just for a moment, and then walks past them to open the door. Before he leaves, Calum thinks he hears him whisper something.

It sounds a lot like _‘take care of her.’_

Yeah, well, he fucking plans to. Asshole.

\----

Calum ends up taking Lu back to his place after that, and he doesn’t try anything as he gets her settled into his bed and then makes to leave the room so he can settle himself in on the couch. He pauses when he hears a quiet _‘don’t go’_ and sighs sadly.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lu,” he says, but the way she whimpers has him turning around and moving back towards the bed. He sits down on the edge of the mattress and lets her take his hand into her own. “I know it hurts,” he murmurs, and she squeezes his hand in response. He stays there for a while, until he hears her breathing even out, and then he carefully frees his hand from hers and goes to lay down on the couch.

He wakes up with a sore neck and a stiff back, but he doesn’t complain when he thinks about the heartbroken shell of a girl lying in his bed. Although she may have thought she wanted him to stay, Calum knows he did the right thing by letting her sleep alone. It’s just - he really likes her, and he doesn’t want her to get her signals all crossed just because she’s upset. He’d rather just keep waiting it out.

Deciding that it’s best to let her sleep a bit longer, he slowly trudges to the kitchen in order to start making some kind of breakfast for the two of them. He’s just finishing up with the pancake batter when he sees movement out of the corner of his eye, and he smiles as he turns to greet Lu, but freezes at the sight of her. She’s wearing nothing but her underwear and one of his plaid flannels, and, fuck, does she look hot. Her eyes are still a little red from all the crying she did the night before, but Calum still thinks she looks amazing. She shifts, almost like she’s feeling self-conscious, and then holds her head up and walks over to him. She takes the bowl and whisk from his hands and sets them aside on the counter before fisting a hand into his shirt and dragging him in for a kiss.

Calum thinks, vaguely, that she really needs to stop surprising him like that before he has a heart attack, but he melts into the kiss after a moment, his hands moving to hold onto her hips as she backs up against the counter and pulls him with her. She’s kissing him like she’s desperate, like she needs to steal the breath from his lungs in order to properly fill her own, and Calum lets himself go with it.

When they finally break apart, Lu smiles up at him coyly, her cheeks tinted with pink, and says, “ _That_ should have been our first kiss.” Then she kisses him again.

It feels an awful lot like an apology and a promise all rolled into one.


End file.
